Aug.30 (GMM) Kimi Raikkonen won the Belgian grand prix, Giancarlo Fisichella's second place is worth "squillions" to Force India, but the big winner at Spa-Francorchamps was Sebastian Vettel.

The German driver finished third, while his fellow championship rivals struggled.

Jenson Button crashed on the first lap, but his Brawn teammate Rubens Barrichello closed the title battle to within 16 points, with Vettel leapfrogging his Red Bull teammate Mark Webber to take third place in the drivers' standings.

The big headline however is the astonishing Belgian form of Force India's Fisichella, who started from pole but was overtaken down the long Kemmel straight by the KERS-assisted Raikkonen's Ferrari.

But the Roman, whose eight points are worth "squillions" to his Silverstone-based team according to business director Ian Phillips, hung onto his Finnish rival throughout the 44 laps, and the gap at the end was less than a single second.

"I'm a little bit sad because I was quicker than Kimi but he overtook me just because of the KERS. Actually, we could have won the race," Fisichella told reporters afterwards.

During the race, the Italian broadcaster Rai reported that a deal has been struck to see Fisichella, 36, switch to replace the hapless Luca Badoer at the next race at Monza.

"Oh, that's just a rumour as I said yesterday," Italian Fisichella said on Sunday afternoon. "Tomorrow I will be concentrating on Monza with Force India overalls and that's all I can say," he added.

Webber, just out of the points in ninth, had to serve a drive-through penalty when his lollipop-man unsafely released him from a pitstop into the path of Nick Heidfeld.

Barrichello was lucky to finish the race seventh with a heavily smoking Mercedes V8.

Button's first lap crash with Romain Grosjean, who the Brawn driver said "out-braked himself", is being investigated by the stewards, as is the similarly race-ending contact between Lewis Hamilton and Jaime Alguersuari.